A Witness To Change In Russia

What was the 77-year-old retired head of Loctite Corp. doing in Moscow on Oct. 3 as troops assaulted rebel lawmakers holed up in Russia's parliament building?

Robert H. Krieble was watching the action at close range, and cheering the forces loyal to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

"I went down to the square and stood right next to that tank that was pumping 5-inch shells into the White House," said Krieble, co-founder and retired chairman of Hartford-based Loctite.

"I was delighted to see the top five floors of the White House burning," Krieble said. "That was something that should have been done a long time ago. Now that they've kicked the cCommunists out of the pParliament, there can be some real progress."

For the fiercely anti-communist Krieble, it's been a long journey from producing sealants and adhesives in Newington to evangelizing for democracy and free enterprise in Vladivostok.

Krieble, however, said he began taking a keen interest in the affairs of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, mostly out of fear. "I was afraid my grandchildren would be slaves to the communist empire," he explained.

When he retired from Loctite upon his 70th birthday in 1985, Krieble wanted to devote himself to political issues. His timing was propitious. In the next few years, Mikhail Gorbachev reformed the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall came down and the communism Krieble had long dreaded collapsed under its own weight.

He founded the Krieble Institute, an affiliate of Paul Weyrich's conservative Free Congress Foundation, in Washington, D.C. Its goal: to teach Russians how to build democracy -- and private businesses -- upon the ruins of the failed communist system.

During the past five years, Krieble estimates he and his associates have made between 40 and 50 trips and, using local interpreters, talked to 8,000 people at Krieble-sponsored seminars in Russia, the former Soviet republics and the former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe.

Krieble spends about two weeks every two months behind what used to be called the Iron Curtain, preaching American-style free

enterprise and elected government with a missionary's zeal. Sometimes he is accompanied by congressional campaign managers or by executives such as Tom Hansberger of the Templeton mutual fund, Jean-Pierre van Rooy of Otis Elevator or Kenneth Butterworth of Loctite.

Krieble has cultivated relationships with pro-democracy Russians, including some of Yeltsin's top policy advisers. He has paid for the restoration of a centuries-old building now known as the Freedom and Democracy House, about a mile from the Kremlin.

While he has sought to teach some civics and economics, Krieble has also learned some lessons from people he had long viewed as his natural enemies.

"A lot of the people are like Americans," the ex-Loctite chief observed. "They speak freely, they're pleasant, they're friendly. They ought to be on our side."

Among the misperceptions Krieble said he's encountered from would-be Russian entrepreneurs is the belief that you need a lot of money, or the backing of a deep-pockets financial institution, to start a business.

"Most of the 20 million ([U.S.]) businesses have been started by people borrowing whatever money they can from friends and relatives," Krieble said.

Krieble now divides his time between his home in Old Lyme, his apartment in Washington and his travels throughout the former Soviet communist world. He thinks he is better known in Moscow these days than in his home state of Connecticut.

"I was concerned, like many people, about what my post-retirement was going to be like," Krieble said. "It turns out that I'm busier than ever, and I feel like I'm accomplishing more than I ever did as a CEO." -- Robert Weisman is a Courant business writer